Sauces for Quenelles
Quenelles may be served as in the following recipe, in which they may be sauced ahead of time and gratinéed just before serving; or hot quenelles may be coated with a hot sauce. If you choose the latter system and the quenelles have been prepared in advance, cover them and heat them through in a buttered dish for 10 to 15 minutes in a 350-degree oven. Then sauce them. Fish quenelles may be substituted for poached fish filets in any of the recipes for fish which include the fine, rich, buttery sauces such as Nantua and normande.
Gratin de Quenelles de Poisson
[Quenelles Gratinéed in White Wine Sauce]
Sauce suprème de poisson (4 cups) enough for 16 poached quenelles
5 Tb butter
7 Tb flour
A 2-quart enameled saucepan
1½ cups boiling milk
1½ cups boiling, concentrated, white-wine fish stock
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp white pepper
Cook the butter and flour slowly together in the saucepan for 2 minutes without coloring. Off heat, beat in the boiling milk, fish stock, and seasonings. Boil, stirring, for 1 minute. Sauce will be very thick.
¾ to 1 cup whipping cream
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice
Slowly simmering the sauce, thin it out with the cream, stirred in by tablespoons. Sauce should be thick enough to coat the spoon fairly heavily. Taste carefully for seasoning, adding salt, pepper and drops of lemon juice as you feel it necessary.
A lightly buttered baking dish 2 inches deep
3 Tb grated Swiss cheese
1 Tb butter cut into pea-sized dots
Pour ¼ inch of sauce in the baking dish. Arrange the drained quenelles on top and spoon the rest of the sauce over them. Sprinkle with cheese and dot with the butter. Set aside uncovered.
About 10 to 15 minutes before serving time, reheat and brown slowly under a moderate broiler.
Quenelles aux Huîtres
[Fish Quenelles with Oysters]
½ Tb minced shallots or green onions
1 Tb butter
12 large oysters, shelled
½ cup dry white wine or ⅓ cup dry white vermouth
¼ tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
Sauté the shallots in butter for a moment in a small saucepan. Add the oysters, wine, and seasonings. Poach at just below the simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, until the oysters swell. Drain the oysters. Boil the poaching liquid over high heat until it is reduced by half, and reserve it for your sauce.
Ingredients for the fish quenelle paste
Roll one oyster into each cylinder of the fish quenelle paste. Poach and sauce the quenelles in the same manner as the fish quenelles in the preceding recipes.
Quenelles de Samon
[Salmon Quenelles]
Use exactly the same proportions and method as given in the master recipe for the fish quenelles, substituting 2 cups of raw salmon, or well-drained canned salmon, for the white-fleshed fish. You may wish to include a tablespoon of tomato paste for added color. Serve with the fish velouté sauce, or with any of the other sauces suggested for fish quenelles.
Quenelles de Crustacés
[Shrimp, Lobster, or Crab Quenelles]
Using exactly the same proportions and method as given in the master recipe for the fish quenelles, substitute 2 cups of raw, cooked, or canned shrimps, lobster, or crab for the fish. The same sauces also apply.
Quenelles de Veau—Quenelles de Volaille
[Veal, Chicken, or Turkey Quenelles]
These can be delicious as a light luncheon or supper dish, and follow the same procedure as for the fish quenelles in the master recipe.
Ingredients for quenelles, but substitute the following for the 2 cups of fish: 2 cups raw veal, chicken, or turkey, minus all skin, bones, and gristle
A 12-inch buttered skillet
Boiling well-seasoned chicken or veal stock, or salted water
Have both meat and pâte à choux well chilled before pureeing in the processor, and cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. You can probably add more cream for meat than fish, because meat has more body. Test in almost simmering stock or lightly salted water before forming, and make sure of the seasoning. Then form into quenelles and arrange in the skillet. Cover by 2 inches with boiling stock or water. Poach for 15 to 20 minutes. Drain, and serve in one of the following ways:
TO SERVE
Quenelles au Gratin. Use the same proportions and method as for the velouté with cream in the gratin recipe, substituting the veal or chicken stock in which you poached the quenelles for the fish stock and all or part of the milk.
Or use the cheese sauce in the gnocchi recipe.
Quenelles, Sauce Madère. Pour over the hot quenelles a brown sauce flavored with Madeira: sauce madère, or sauce périgueux (with trufflés).
FRENCH PANCAKES
Crêpes
Every French household makes use of crêpes, not only as a festive dessert for Mardi Gras and Candlemas Day, but as an attractive way to turn leftovers or simple ingredients into a nourishing main-course dish. Crêpes may be rolled around a filling of fish, meat, or vegetables, spread with sauce, and browned under the broiler. More spectacular is a gâteau de crêpes in which the pancakes are piled upon each other in a stack of 24, each spread with a filling. This is then heated in the oven and gratinéed with a good sauce. Or the crêpes may be piled in a soufflé mold with alternating layers of filling, heated in the oven, unmolded, and coated with sauce. Whatever system you decide upon, including rolled crêpes, your dish may be prepared in advance and heated up when you are ready to serve.
Dessert crêpes, called crêpes sucrées, and entrée crêpes, crêpes salées, have slightly different proportions, but their batters are blended and cooked in the same way. The following recipe is made with an electric blender, because it is so quick. If you do not have one, gradually blend the eggs into the flour, beat in the liquid by spoonfuls, then the butter, and strain the batter to get rid of any possible lumps. Crêpe batter should be made at least 2 hours before it is to be used; this allows the flour particles to expand in the liquid and insures a tender, light, thin crêpe.
PTE À CRÊPES
[Crêpe Batter]
For about 25 to 30 crêpes, 6 to 6½ inches in diameter
1 cup cold water
1 cup cold milk
4 eggs
½ tsp salt
1½ cups flour (scooped and leveled)
4 Tb melted butter
A rubber scraper
Put the liquids, eggs, and salt into the blender jar. Add the flour, then the butter. Cover and blend at top speed for 1 minute. If bits of flour adhere to sides of jar, dislodge with a rubber scraper and blend for 2 to 3 seconds more. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
The batter should be a very light cream, just thick enough to coat a wooden spoon. If, after making your first crêpe, it seems too heavy, beat in a bit of water, a spoonful at a time. Your cooked crêpe should be about 1/16 inch thick.
Method for Making Crêpes
The first crêpe is a trial one to test out the consistency of your batter, the exact amount you need for the pan, and the heat.
An iron skillet or a crêpe pan with a 6½- to 7-inch bottom diameter
A piece of fat bacon or pork-rind; OR 2 to 3 Tb cooking oil and a pastry brush
Rub the skillet with the rind or brush it lightly with oil. Set over moderately high heat until the pan is just beginning to smoke.
Iron Crêpe Pans
Top—French Crêpe Pan
Left—American Skillet
Right—Omelette Pan
A ladle or measure to hold 3 to 4 Tb or ¼ cup
Immediately remove from heat and, holding handle of pan in your right hand, pour with your left hand a scant ¼ cup of batter into the middle of the pan. Quickly tilt the pan in all directions to run the batter all over the bottom of the pan in a thin film. (Pour any batter that does not adhere to the pan back int
o your bowl; judge the amount for your next crêpe accordingly.) This whole operation takes but 2 or 3 seconds.
Return the pan to heat for 60 to 80 seconds. Then jerk and toss pan sharply back and forth and up and down to loosen the crêpe. Lift its edges with a spatula and if the under side is a nice light brown, the crêpe is ready for turning.
Turn the crêpe by using 2 spatulas; or grasp the edges nearest you in your fingers and sweep it up toward you and over again into the pan in a reverse circle; or toss it over by a flip of the pan.
Brown lightly for about ½ minute on the other side. This second side is rarely more than a spotty brown, and is always kept as the underneath or nonpublic aspect of the crêpe. As they are done, slide the crêpes onto a rack and let cool several minutes be fore stacking on a plate. Grease the skillet again, heat to just smoking, and proceed with the rest of the crêpes. Crêpes may be kept warm by covering them with a dish and setting them over simmering water or in a slow oven. Or they may be made several hours in advance and reheated when needed. (Crêpes freeze perfectly.) As soon as you are used to the procedure, you can keep 2 pans going at once, and make 24 crêpes in less than half an hour.
Gâteau de Crêpes À la Florentine
[Mound of French Pancakes Filled with Cream Cheese, Spinach, and Mushrooms]
An amusing entrée or main-course dish can be made by piling crêpes, a filling between each, in a shallow baking dish. (It looks like a many-layered cake or cylindrical mound.) Then the whole mound is covered with a good sauce and heated in the oven. Instead of the spinach, cheese, and mushrooms suggested, use any type of filling you wish, even three or four different kinds rather than one or two. Like the cream fillings on this page, they are all a combination of well-flavored sauce and a mince or purée of cooked fish, shellfish, veal, ham, chicken or chicken livers, to which are added cooked vegetables such as asparagus tips, eggplant, tomatoes, spinach, or mushrooms if you wish. Other sauce suggestions, depending on your filling, are tomato sauce, brown Madeira sauce, sauce soubise (béchamel with puréed onions). You may use one or more types of sauce for the fillings, and still another to top the mound of crêpes.
This type of dish may be made ready for the oven in the morning, and heated up at dinnertime.
For 4 to 6 people
Batter for 24 crêpes 6½ inches in diameter
Make the crêpes and set them aside.
Sauce Mornay (béchamel with cheese), 3 cups
5 Tb flour
4 Tb butter
A 1½-quart saucepan
Cook the flour and butter slowly together in the saucepan for 2 minutes without coloring.
2 ¾ cups boiling milk
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp pepper
Big pinch of nutmeg
Off heat, beat in the boiling milk and seasonings. Boil, stirring, for 1 minute.
¼ cup whipping cream
1 cup coarsely grated Swiss cheese
Reduce to the simmer and stir in the cream by tablespoons. Sauce should be thick enough to coat the spoon fairly heavily. Remove from heat and correct seasoning. Stir in all but two tablespoons of the cheese. Film top of sauce with milk to prevent a skin from forming.
The spinach filling
1 Tb minced shallots or green onions
2 Tb butter
1½ cups blanched chopped spinach
¼ tsp salt
Cook the shallots or onions in butter for a moment in an enameled saucepan. Add spinach and salt, and stir over moderately high heat for 2 to 3 minutes to evaporate moisture. Stir in ½ to ⅔ cup of the cheese sauce. Cover and simmer slowly for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Correct seasoning and set aside.
The cheese and mushroom filling
1 cup cottage cheese or 8 ounces cream cheese
Salt and pepper
1 egg
Mash the cheese in a mixing bowl with the seasonings. Beat in ⅓ to ½ cup of the cheese sauce, and the egg.
¼ lb. (1 cup) minced mushrooms
1 Tb minced shallots or green onions
1 Tb butter
½ Tb oil
Sauté the mushrooms and shallots in butter and oil for 5 to 6 minutes in a skillet. Stir them into the cheese mixture, and correct seasoning.
Forming the mound
A round baking dish about 9 inches in diameter and 1½ inches deep
3 Tb grated cheese
½ Tb butter
Butter the baking dish, and center a crêpe in the bottom. Spread it with a layer of cheese and mushroom filling. Press a crêpe on top and spread it with a layer of spinach filling. Continue with alternating layers of crêpes and filling, ending with a crêpe. Pour the remaining cheese sauce over the top and sides of the mound. Sprinkle with the 3 tablespoons of cheese and dot with 3 or 4 pea-sized bits of butter. Set aside.
Baking
About 25 to 30 minutes before serving time, place in upper third of a preheated 350-degree oven to heat through thoroughly and brown the top lightly. To serve, cut in pie-shaped wedges.
VARIATIONS
Timbale de Crêpes
[Molded French Pancakes with Various Fillings]
For 6 people
A 1½-quart cylindrical mold, preferably a charlotte, about 3½ inches high and 6¼ inches in diameter
10 cooked crêpes 6 ½ to 7 inches in diameter and 12 crêpes 6 inches in diameter
3 to 4 cups of cream fillings, one or several varieties
Butter the mold. Cut the 10 large crêpes in half. Line the mold with them—their best sides against the mold, their pointed ends meeting at the bottom center of the mold, and the other ends folded down the outside of the mold. Fill the mold with alternating layers of stuffing and crêpes. Fold the dangling ends of the halved crêpes over the last layer of stuffing and top with a final crêpe.
2½ cups of sauce, such as tomato, cheese, or whatever will go with your fillings
Set mold in a pan of boiling water and bake in lower third of a preheated 350-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until thoroughly heated. Unmold on a buttered serving dish and cover with whatever sauce you have chosen.
Crêpes Farcies et Roulées
[Stuffed and Rolled French Pancakes]
Place a big spoonful of filling on the lower third of each crêpe and roll the crêpes into cylinders.
Either sauté in butter, remove to a hot serving dish and sprinkle with parsley;
Or arrange in a shallow baking dish, cover with sauce, sprinkle with cheese and brown slowly under a moderate broiler.
The shellfish or chicken fillings are especially good for this if you wish to be fairly elaborate. Both call for a good sauce velouté; in making it, use half the sauce to mix with an equal amount of shellfish or chicken for your filling. Thin out the rest with a bit of heavy cream, and use that for coating the crêpes.
COCKTAIL APPETIZERS
Hors d’Oeuvres
For those who enjoy making pastries, here are a few good hot hors d’oeuvres and one cold one. The series of canapés and tartlets starting and the chaussons, can be made larger, and served as a first course or luncheon dish.
AMUSE-GUEULE AU ROQUEFORT
[Roquefort Cheese Balls—Cold]
For about 24
½ lb. Roquefort or blue cheese
4 to 6 Tb softened butter
1½ Tb chives or minced green onion tops
1 Tb finely minced celery
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt if needed
⅛ tsp pepper
1 tsp cognac or a few drops of Worcestershire sauce
Crush the cheese in a bowl with 4 tablespoons of the butter and work it into a smooth paste. Beat in the chives or onion tops, celery, seasonings, and cognac or Worcestershire. If mixture is very stiff, beat in more butter by fractions. Check seasoning carefully. Roll into balls about ½ inch in diameter.
½ cup fine, stale, white breadcrumbs
2 Tb very finely minced parsley
Toss bread crumbs and parsley in a plate. Ro
ll the cheese balls in the mixture so they are well covered. Chill.
Serve as they are or pierced with a toothpick.
CHEESE BISCUITS
Bouchées, Galettes, Baguettes
Any of the following are more attractive when hot, but are quite good served cold. They may be baked, then frozen, and reheated for 5 minutes or so in a hot oven.
GALETTES AU FROMAGE
[Cheese Wafers]